


Routine

by Pigeon_theoneandonly



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Mass Effect 3, there's no way kaidan doesn't have an absolute army of hair products at his disposal, with just a drop of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23598538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigeon_theoneandonly/pseuds/Pigeon_theoneandonly
Summary: Kaidan attempts to bring some order to Shepard's chaos, starting with her hair.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard
Comments: 15
Kudos: 33





	Routine

The droning buzz of a hairdryer woke Nathaly Shepard from a sound sleep.

It took a solid minute to identify what she was hearing. Another to raise her bleary eyes to the bedside clock. 0530. Though an early riser by nature, it had been a very long night, they were in port, and she was relishing the thought of sleeping in, tucked warm into her own bed.

She rolled onto her back, and winced at a twinge in her hip. Yes, a long and, ah, energetic night, and she had receipts to prove it. Ones that seemed to get longer as she got older. Shepard rubbed her eyes, old mascara flaking onto her fingertips, and reached out her arm across the sheets, fully intending to cuddle into Kaidan and go back to sleep.

And kept reaching, all the way to the far edge of the mattress. Then patted the bedding, and finally looked up towards the bathroom. Right. She could hear the hairdryer, ergo someone was using a hairdryer, and the only candidate was her intended body pillow. Not that this answer made any more sense. For all his years in the service and the early mornings that implied, she’d learned to schedule briefings after nine if she wanted any sense out of him.

Stifling a yawn, she dragged herself to sitting, shivering in the cold canned air of the ship. Wrapped the duvet around her shoulders like a cape and wandered to the coffee maker. For a minute she made a bleary contemplation of the work required to load the machine, before deciding yesterday’s grounds still had some life in them and simply pressed start.

The hairdryer cut out. Her ears rang in the sudden silence. God, that thing was loud. But as her hearing ramped back up into normal range, she detected another sound coming from the bathroom. Whistling?

Shepard shuffled across the cabin. Yes, definitely a whistle, off-key and a semblance of the same song they heard last night leaving Apollo’s. She pressed her hand to the door’s haptic pad and it zipped open.

Kaidan stopped mid-bar and flashed her a smile. Shirtless, a towel wrapped around his hips. “Morning.”

Ordinarily she might have been distracted. But instead, she stared in dismay at the dozen-odd tubes, canisters, and combs littering her sink. “What is all… this?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t remember?”

At the shake of her head, he continued, “We were half asleep. I said it would be hard to go back to a hot bunk after sleeping in the lap of luxury.” Gesturing vaguely at her cabin. “And you said to hell with that, and dragged us downstairs to collect my stuff. I think you woke up half the crew scrounging around.”

A fuzzy memory of doing exactly that trickled back. Exhausted Nathaly didn’t typically look after her interests quiet that well. “I guess that’s one awkward announcement we were spared. But it doesn’t answer my question.”

“What question?”

She picked up a jar. “What is all this stuff?”

He gave it a glance. “That one’s pomade.”

“Ok.” Then it dawned on her, like an ancient horror rising from the sea. “These aren’t all hair care products… are they?”

Hoping against every instinct and the evidence of her own eyes the answer was no.

Kaidan considered the array. “Yeah. I mean, I always have to pick and choose to meet baggage allowance on deployment, and it’s been hard to find anything since the war started, but we make do.” Then he got a look at her face. “What?”

Shepard tread carefully. “You’ve collected quite a few.”

“Well, you must have your own, right? Since you lost most of your hair.”

That was delicately put. Cerberus had shaved off eleven years of growth to better access her scalp, and in a little over a year it felt like it’d barely grown out at all. Especially because she had to trim it to keep it healthy. Impulsively buzzing off the sides a few months after being resurrected hadn’t helped, either. “I’m more of a wash and wear type.”

An expression of sudden understanding came over his face, a major mystery enlightened. “You can’t do that with short hair. Especially not with all of it growing out of the top like that.”

“You can’t?”

“No.” More than a bit of a suppressed chuckle behind that. “Come here.”

He pulled her into the bathroom. She let the duvet fall off before it dragged through the puddle of water from his shower, and let Kaidan position her in front of the mirror. He pressed his hand into her head, palm tickling over the buzzed portion above her ear. “See how it’s sticking up here?”

The left side stood up perpendicular to her skull, a frozen tidal wave of red brushing up against his fingers. “So? It’ll go down when I shower.”

“Which will only dry it into new and stranger patterns.” His fingers combed through it with a fussiness that bordered on professional. “Let me show you an easy fix. If you hate it, you can always wash it out.”

She heaved a sigh. But his hands felt good against her scalp. “Fine.”

“Great.” He seized a spray bottle.

A realization came over her. “You’ve wanted to do this for years, haven’t you.”

“Well…” He tilted his head back and forth. “I always assumed you were rushed in the mornings. You get up so early. I never realized you weren’t doing anything at all.”

Kaidan said this as if it were a great offense. Which, considering his array of products, maybe it was. She switched topics as he started to spray, lifting her hair to get at the roots. “You know, it just occurred to me. All these years and we’ve never done this. The whole morning routine thing.”

“Gender-segregated bathrooms will get you every time.” He scrutinized his work.

“I always thought hairspray came last.”

“It’s not—” Flabbergasted. “Don’t tell me you’ve been in the navy this long and you’ve never heard of dry shampoo.”

Shepard snorted and leaned forward on the counter. “Dry shampoo sounds like a wet sandwich. Useless in every way.”

“It absorbs the grease.”

“So, now I’ve got a head full of greasy powder instead.”

He rolled his eyes. “Is it possible for you to maybe curb the cynicism until I’m finished?”

This was not what she was looking for at the crack of dawn. It was particularly not what she was looking for this morning. But they’d come this far, so she might as well let him finish. “If it comes out weird, you know I’ll never let you live it down.”

“A little confidence, please.” But he smirked as he said it, and reached for another bottle. The label had smudged. He answered her unspoken question. “Frizz control.”

She tilted her head to accommodate his motion. “Feels oily.”

“It won’t when I’ve got it worked in all the way.” His hands roamed her hair. This ordeal felt as intimate as it did awkward. Shepard had no idea which way to tip, emotionally. Kaidan held her hostage by the roots. All she could do was wait for it to be over.

Sure enough, as he combed the serum through, it became weightless on her hair—not that Shepard could see any difference in how it looked. But Kaidan was just getting started. “Great. Now the big one.”

Her eyes widened as he pumped an entire ocean of white foam into his palm. “That’s way too much—”

“Trust me.”

She watched it go into her hair. “It looks like one of those idiot homemade shampoos. Like I’ve got egg whites in my hair.”

Kaidan turned her around, so they were face to face, and she couldn’t see the mirror. “Trust me.”

Shepard sighed and gave up all resistance. His eyes were on her hair. Hers fixed on his mouth, watching it thin and thicken as he worked, chewing it just the slightest bit when he got to a tricky part. She hated standing silent like this. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, because sometimes it felt like she’d missed him so much that she missed him still, now, even though he was here, right in front of her. Like missing him was a groove worn down in her emotional treadmill. A residual reflex. Or like the metallic ghost of adrenaline in her mouth after she won an unexpected fight, lingering on after its purpose was spent.

All those things she didn’t want to remember came back when there wasn’t anything to say or do but wait. The sound of his helmet hitting the shuttle frame on Mars. How pale he got on the flight to the Citadel afterwards. Storming the Presidium in pursuit of Kai Leng, and hearing Bailey say over the comm _all the Council’s guards are dead._

Something betrayed her, a flicker in her face, a slight stiffening of her posture, because Kaidan paused and lifted her chin with only slightly sticky fingertips. “You ok?”

“I’m fine.” She forced an easy smile, reassuring. “I’m just… really happy you’re here.”

“Hmm.” By all appearances, he didn’t totally buy it, but he only leaned forward and planted a light kiss on her mouth. Then he made a few final adjustments, and spun her around. “Ta-da.”

Shepard blinked. Her hand rose without any conscious thought and stopped bare millimeters from her hair. “Can I touch it?”

“It’d be a piss-poor job if you couldn’t.”

Her fingers ran gently through the strands. “It’s so soft.”

“Alcohol-free mousse is the way to go.” He watched her in the mirror.

“It looks…” Intentional. It had shape, and volume, more organized than natural thickness. Not just a clump of red falling into her eyes. “It’ll do.”

His face split into a smug grin. Her glance was withering. “Don’t think I’m going to let you do this every day.”

“Nah. You’ll be doing it by yourself within a week.” Then he laughed as she gave him a shove. “Wanna bet?”

Shepard gave herself another look. Very grudging. “Well. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to do it like this, just sometimes. Once in a while.”

He put his arms around her, kissed her cheek, and rested his chin on her shoulder. “Despite what you’ve heard, change can be good.”

Her hand cupped his cheek, as she watched them together in the mirror, ridiculously domestic. Together. “There’s at least one I could definitely get used to.”

His answering smile reached his eyes, and made it clear he knew she wasn’t talking about hair.


End file.
